The Government gets it! (15 September 1999) There's been much hoopla about a Prime Ministerial visit to Cambridge. The Guardian, however, picked up something enormously significant at the same time. We reproduce two paragraphs from the article; no comment is needed. Access was also identified as key, and Ms Hewitt said she was urgently seeking meetings with BT and regulator OFTEL to encourage tariff structures that lean toward the model of unmetered charging. She said cost of being online was a significant barrier to growth, in contrast to the situation in Australia where local calls were unmetered, in return for a higher line rental charge. During peak hours, the cost of accessing the Internet is more expensive in Britain than Germany, Japan, Italy, the US or Canada, the report said. OFTEL will be beefed up to make sure that BT does not stifle internet growth. And The Times paraphrased the Prime Minister as saying something very similar: Another critical barrier to Internet trading for smaller firms is cost. Mr Blair yesterday pledged to continue to maintain pressure to drive down the cost of Internet access. Telecoms operators will be encouraged to offer a wider variety of tariffs for access to the Internet. Not just small firms, and what about firms not yet online? We were originally down to meet Michael Wills on 9 September, but a Government reshuffle meant that he was replaced as Minister of State at the DTI by Patricia Hewitt. Now that everyone is back at work Ms Hewitt's Diary Secretary is setting a new date for the meeting.